Biodiversity and Our Food's Future

ECH Editorial Team: From your perspective as a biodiversity researcher, how important is the EAT-Lancet Report for understanding the links between global food systems, environmental change, and the loss of biological diversity?

Franz Essl: The EAT-Lancet Report is a milestone assessment providing an integrated perspective on the global food system – from food production, distribution to consumption. It makes clear that protecting and restoring the green basis of agriculture – i.e., biodiversity – and keeping climate change within the safe operating space are essential for long-term food security. The current global food system is unsustainable and transgressing planetary boundaries, thus, bold substantial systemic shifts are necessary on several fronts. While these aspects are not new, they are THE central key messages of this report. This makes this report stand out from others. 

ECH Editorial Team: The EAT-Lancet Report makes use of the concept of “planetary boundaries”. How useful is this concept from a biodiversity perspective in communicating ecological risks and guiding decision-making?

Franz Essl: We are living on a finite planet – our marvelous Earth. Humanity so far has taken many services and resources provided by intact ecosystems for granted. However, the rising demand on many resources has now led to an unforeseen situation: humanity has transgressed the boundaries of our planet in many dimensions. The concept of planetary boundaries is well-suited to highlight these facts, and it can be easily understood. So, in short, the choice to apply the planetary boundaries-concept to the food system makes a lot of sense.

ECH Editorial Team: The dietary and land-use recommendations of the report are formulated at a global level. What challenges arise, in your view, when translating these recommendations to very different ecological and social contexts?

Franz Essl: The report stresses that food production - even in the decades to come - has to be conducted on the land already used for agriculture. Remaining forests and wilderness areas have to be set aside for both biodiversity conservation and curbing greenhouse gas emissions from land use change. For the Austrian context, this message can be translated as follows: our agricultural system should be re-oriented towards sustainable production of food, while conserving – or restoring where necessary – high nature value farmland and ecosystems such as wetlands, hedgerows, and extensively used grassland. Furthermore, it is important to reduce the currently rapid expansion of built-up-areas in Austria, which are undermining both biodiversity and the agricultural basis in Austria.

ECH Editorial Team: What insights from biodiversity research are most crucial for shaping food systems that remain ecologically stable and resilient in the long term?

Franz Essl: The EAT Lancet report makes clear that feeding the world population – by the mid century of roughly 10 billion people - will crucially depend on an integrated approach that recognizes that intact nature is the basis of our food system. This perspective builds on a large body of evidence from biodiversity science.

ECH Editorial Team: In your view, to what extent is an interdisciplinary approach essential for jointly addressing the ecological, nutritional, agricultural, and societal dimensions of global food systems transformation?

Franz Essl: The global food system is extremely complicated, affecting every person and nearly every inhabitable place on Earth to some extent. It is the strongest driver of land use change and biodiversity loss and plays an essential role for human wellbeing. This perspective makes clear that understanding how humans grow, distribute and consume food can only be adequately studied by approaches that value and integrate different methods and perspectives – as is done in the ECH. Still, disciplinary research of different kinds is also essential to study specific aspects of the food system. So, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary research are needed.